Disease Surveillance in China

Disease Surveillance In China

Surveillance for communicable diseases is the main public health surveillance activity in China. Currently, the disease surveillance system in China has three major components:

  • National Disease Reporting System (NDRS): The system covers the entire population (1.3 billion persons) living in all the provinces, prefectures, and counties that make up mainland China. Thirty-five communicable diseases are reportable under this system.
  • Nationwide Disease Surveillance Points (DSPs): This surveillance system, comprising 145 reporting sites selected by stratified cluster random sampling, covers a 1% representative sample of China's population.
  • Surveillance system for specific infectious diseases, occupational diseases, food poisoning, etc.

There are 35 notifiable infectious diseases, which are divided into Classes A, B, and C. The functions of the surveillance include explaining the natural history of infectious diseases, describing the distribution of case occurrence, triggering disease-control effort, monitoring epidemic of infectious diseases during natural disasters, predicting and controlling epidemics and providing the base of policy adjustment.

Data collected through the disease surveillance network serve as the basis for formulating health policies and devising strategies for preventing disease. A computerized reporting system for notifiable diseases has been established that links China's 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities. Mechanisms for providing timely feedback to units that report data and for systematically assessing the quality of those data are important attributes of this system.

Read more about Disease Surveillance In China:  National Disease Reporting System (NDRS), National Disease Surveillance Points (DSPs), Surveillance of Specific Infectious Diseases, Quality Control of Data Collection, Use of Surveillance Data For Control of Disease

Famous quotes containing the words disease and/or china:

    “John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.”
    —Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    “In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.”
    —Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)